Morocco

If passed by the country’s two parliamentary chambers, an expedited draft law 44.18 would reinstate mandatory military service for both Moroccan men and women between the ages of nineteen and twenty-five by the end of next year. The announcement fell on the same day as King Mohammed VI’s speech on the 65th Anniversary of the King and People’s Revolution, August 20—a public holiday commemorating a turning point in the country’s struggle for independence from the French—in which he urgently appealed to the nation and government to address the country’s persistent youth issues including unemployment, idleness, and lack of opportunity.

Morocco cut diplomatic ties with Iran on May 1, 2018 after allegations of Iranian meddling in the Western Sahara dispute. The Moroccan Minister of Foreign Affairs, Nasser Bourita, met with his Iranian counterpart, Mohammed Javad Zarif, in Tehran the following day to deliver a ‘secret dossier’ accusing Iran of aiding the separatist group Polisario Front in Western Sahara through its Embassy in Algeria, and positioning Hezbollah as a proxy. During his visit, Bourita revealed that a series of Iranian-mediated meetings took place between top Lebanese Hezbollah officials and Polisario representatives in the Sahrawi refugee camps in Algeria. Bourita went on to state that Hezbollah has smuggled weapons, including truck-mounted anti-aircraft missiles, and has provided military training to Polisario Front...
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The Western Sahara is a region controlled by the Moroccan government for the past thirty-five years. It has long fostered the idea of a referendum while Morocco has publicly discouraged bids for independence. The Catalan referendum has bolstered the Western Sahara cause while standing as an example for Morocco of the possible repercussions: protests, violence, and overall fragmentation by the Spanish government and now-ousted Catalan president Carles Puigdemont illustrate the dangerous potential for Morocco’s ongoing tension with the Western Sahara region it controls. What is the history of the Western Sahara and what is its relationship with Morocco? How close is it really to a referendum?

Despite Morocco’s many legal advances in women’s rights, its lack of effective implementation and the existence of legislative loopholes undermines its reputation as an open, tolerant, and progressive country. In recent months, Morocco’s human rights record has come under the scrutiny of international organizations, notably the UN Human Rights Council latest UPR. Morocco’s questionable human rights—and specifically, women’s rights—abuses are a liability to its role as a US ally, a relationship that offers trade, investment, military, and diplomatic benefits to the nation.

The demonstrations, police repression, and continued violence in al-Hoceima in the northern Rif region of Morocco bring back not only the rebellious past of that region, but also memories among Moroccans of Hassan II’s repression—the so-called years of lead. The events also bring the country full circle back to the beginning of the Arab uprising of 2011 when optimists viewed Mohammed VI’s reasoned reaction to the February 20 uprising as a sign that Morocco had indeed taken a different path from the one taken by the fallen leaders of Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen and the still standing one in Syria.